By Aaron Porter, president of the National Union of Students

Earlier this week Damian Green, the immigration minister, gave a speech outlining his reasons for wanting to restrict the numbers and activities of students coming to the UK to study from outside the EU. It’s easy to see why, for political reasons, non-EU International Students are a good target for the government — David Cameron made promises during the election campaign to reduce immigration and he has little power to control immigration from inside the EU and transnational corporations have effectively demonstrated the need for relatively free movement of labour from outside the EU in a globalised market.

But of course it’s not that simple. Our already beleaguered further and higher education system relies on operating as a hugely profitable export industry in order to subsidise the education of domestic students. International students benefit the UK economy to the tune of £5 billion every year — more than the entire government teaching grant to higher education for next academic year. That this is a vital source of funding for universities and the wider economy is not in dispute and is acknowledged by the minister himself.

The problem is that Mr Green believes there are abuses of the system that are ripe for a ‘crackdown’ without impacting the revenue stream. He wants to make it harder for non-EU students to study at pre-degree level and to stop the ‘Post-Study Work’ (PSW) route that allows visa-holder to work in the UK for two years after their degree course finishes. Trimming the fat either side of the cash cow, to mix metaphors.

What Mr Green has failed to properly evaluate is the value of these things in encouraging international students to the UK and equipping them to study here. A great many of the ‘sub-degree’ level courses which will not be eligible for visas are used by students to gain the language and other skills to qualify them to study, and therefore spend, at UK universities. Similarly, the PSW visa is a major attraction for the majority of students coming to the UK. NUS research to be released next week shows that nearly three-quarters would not have chosen to come to the UK without access to that visa which allows them to gain valuable work experience in the UK to take back to their home nations and funds to service loans that wages back home would not bring.

There are myriad other less easily demonstrable reasons why international students are vital to the UK, not least the connections and knowledge they bring with them and take away that leave our graduates well placed to keep the UK at the centre of a globalised economy that would race away from us if we became isolated. Further restrictions simply do not make sense from a business and economic point-of-view and that is why I will be calling on the government to drop these damaging changes.